


a pause, a peace.

by Nillegible



Series: Naruto Magic Week Fills [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 19:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19470466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nillegible/pseuds/Nillegible
Summary: The price of Hashirama's peace was that it would end. It was a heavy price to pay.For Naruto Magic Week Prompt: Torn from the earth





	1. Chapter 1: Waking

**Author's Note:**

> A sort of Merlin-inspired Hashirama centric fic that ties into the Mito-as-the-Dimensional Witch Fill (No. 1). Super short this time, but I have lots for tomorrow!
> 
> Happy Naruto Magic Week!

_It feels like a sneeze_ , he thinks, which is perhaps the least tree-like thing he’s had to think in an incredibly long time. It brings up the memory of breathing, of having to mechanically draw in air and force it out instead of just opening up one’s leaves and tasting the air, and suddenly he’s flooded with more memories. Remembers smells, and taste and eating and then it spins too fast as he remembers _hands_ and legs, and moving. Along with this comes the memory of pain and then the sensation of pain, starting deep within and extending to his furthest root and branch, intense and burning, and if trees could scream Hashirama would.

He’s dying, that must be it, he can feel his leaves blown to one side as he _slips_ , suddenly aware of gravity in a way he rarely was except to know which way was down. He can feel his branches splintering and tearing and he’s torn apart, his roots firmly tethered to the ground rent from him as he’s literally rent in two and it’s thunderous, frightening cracking as he crashes into the ground and there’s silence.

Human voices, also familiar from years ago and he tastes dirt, smells soft green sapwood. breathing, he thinks, head spinning, and he gasps for breath, forgotten flesh-memory reminding him to expand his chest to let air inside even though it feels disgusting like he’s been hollowed out.

It feels _all_ wrong, it feels _cold,_ for all that the sun’s warmth strikes his browned skin, it’s a paltry warmth incomparable to the taste of blue-red mid-day-light filtering into cooler redder evening-light, crisp and tangy and strengthening.

He stumbles to his knees, off-balance, spinning, he’s so small. A storm-wind could just pick him up and throw him away. The earth is so hard and unyielding, when his fingers scrape in the dirt there’s no purchase, he’s been uprooted, lost and he keens, not sure how except his throat is seizing and he can’t scream, just makes that pitiable noise again, and again as he wheezes for breath because he’s been broken.

“Senju Hashirama?” asks a soft voice and he tries to look up but there’s matted hair in the way. When he brushes it aside there’s a boy, leaning down with his hands fluttering before him. “Are you alright?”

Is he alright? Is he _alright_? His throat is tight and aching with something that feels like sobs but he asks, “What have you done to me? What have you…” and then he shatters, loud wracking sobs because it hurts, he’s alone and small, and where a moment before he’d been a shelter and a home, an integral part of the world he’s been torn away from. He’s lost.

Small hands hover before him and then grasp his shoulder. He flinches and pushes away, “No,” he says, “Put me back, I don’t want this.” An older figure kneels beside the bright-haired child. This one has strange markings around his eyes. He raises his fingers into the air in front of Hashirama, fingers glowing. He watches in surprise at the shapes he traces, feeling the very edges of a memory stirring in his mind, and then everything goes dark.

Hashirama slumps forward and Orochimaru catches him. Kurama crawls forward, sniffing at the collapsed man carefully, mournfully, and says, “I honestly expected more from him.”


	2. Chapter 2: Resting

All but immortal, he has wandered the earth for many human lifespans, never visibly or physically aging beyond thirty-five. It feels wrong, to have young bones that do not creak after two hundred years of use, to not feel the burdens that he carries crush his spine into defeat. He returns to Mito, and begs for a boon.

“I can’t, you know I can’t,” she whispers, her soft hands around his tight like she doesn’t want to let him leave. “You’re as trapped here as I am. But if it’s peace that you want, not escape, then I think that… of course, you must understand that there will be a price.”

She leads him to a warm world, all but uninhabited with clear air and fresh spring water. A hundred years ago this would have been more than enough to bring him peace, the tangy scent of the towering redwoods, the soft springy earth beneath his feet. He follows his wife – no longer his wife – Mito is no longer quite human and that’s different from Hashirama, who’s beginning to doubt that he ever was.

She stops him in a glade that’s not all that different from several they’ve walked through already.

“Here we are,” she says, turning in a careful circle as though scouting out a tiny little battlefield. “Kneel here.”

Hashirama sinks carefully to his knees, which pain him like an old man’s though his limbs are as young as ever. The human(?) mind is a curious thing. “I haven’t paid, yet,” he says, confused.

Mito rests her hands on his head, small and kind. “You can’t stay forever,” she says. “That’s the price."

"How long?" he asks, though it doesn't matter, he needs this. Just a moment's rest would be something to treasure. 

"Until you are needed," she says, which isn't a proper answer. Then she tilts his head up so he can look into her eyes and says, "Not nearly long enough," which is.


End file.
